First jpop artist I ever got into was Utada Hikaru. I read about her in a mag and downloaded her music when I got home. On my 56k connection I had then.
This was way back, before I started taking Japanese classes, before my trip to Japan in 2004. Before lots of people had heard of her because of kingdom hearts. Most of the stuff I had of her wasn't her best stuff. It didn't really matter though, I absoluted loved her voice. My favorite song of her's was Can You Keep a Secret.
During that time Hikki was about the only Jpop I listened to. All else was rock music and jpop from anime. Anime was about the only Japanese thing I was watching then. <.<
As soon as I discovered I could start taking Japanese classes...wow. Yeah, I was pretty happy. Not long after that I got a cable internet connection too. I started downloading anime shows on the internet, browsing J-Rock rotations sites and whatever I could find every day. And watching the stuff with fellow classmates. So I saw alot more PVs and such now. I wasn't into any artist other than hikki still.
During the time I was in Japan I bought a issue of shonen jump. I had wanted to buy some manga while I was there. And when I saw one with W on the cover I had to buy it. Of course I didn't know it was W at the time. I did see aibon and nono before then though. I had seen them before in a momuse PV. Yeah, I thought they were adorable. And I had to buy that issue. I thought they were both cute but I liked aibon more. I stared at that mag quite alot when on the trains and whatnot in Japan. Oddly enough I didn't even really realize that the girls on the cover I thought were cute were the same girls I had seen on the PV before... <.<;;
I knew I liked aibon from that momusu PV and then went on to buy a comic book just because it had her on the cover. Twas fate. And twas love at first site. It's a pretty big deal I think that I bought that comic book just because it had them/her on the cover.
When I came back home it was more Japanese classes and more downloading J-Rock/J-Pop/Anime again. I discovered all the J-Rock download sites because they were all linking to each other and so I went from site to site all the time. Putting the good ones in my favorites. Eventually one of the rotation sites linked to a place called
Public MM Torrents. I leeched from there for a while. Mostly downloading J-Rock. They didn't just have momusu but jpop and jrock as well. One of files I downloaded was minimoni the movie: Okashina Daibouken. It was awesome. I was thinking to myself how I loved Japan's cute culture and how I could watch movies like this all day. At first of the movie I was also like "these girls look awfully familiar....". I didn't realize till about halfway through the movie that they were the same girls that were on my comic book! I went crazy. Not only was this an awesome movie, it had those girls. It was kinda hard to figure out because the comic book was them in W when they were older and this movie was them in minimoni when they were younger. Still kind of embarrassing that it took me halfway through the movie though.
This was a turning point for me. This public MM place, though it had various jpop and jrock had a theme. A theme with a bunch of girls on the banner that would change each time you refreshed. After watching the movie, I downloaded more various things. J-Rock, J-Pop and sometimes the stuff that the site was truly for, h!p. I figured out fairly quickly that those girls were part of that group that this site was about. But not long after that, Public MM torrents went down. Permanently. I went back to my old rotation sites for a while. But I kept on the lookout for finding another place that had Japanese music torrents. Rotation sites were getting kind of old to me. I eventually tried to figure out if Public MM was making another place. Sites often change Urls or locations or whatever. Since I had figured out MM stood for Morning Musume. So I googled it. I ran into several sites, and like I figured, aibon was a part of this thing. I had to find another place to download like I did last. I searched harder and with a sense of urgency I never had before.
With this urgent searching I eventually ran into hello!online. One of the first torrents I put up was the video I got from public mm, the minimoni movie. With each new site I looked at and each torrent I downloaded at hello!online my love for aibon grew more and more intense.
And that's how I got to where I am now.
Topic: Love at First Sight? (Favourite member stories) (Read 19641 times)